


Heart Made of Clay

by crowboy13



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (implied) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Dissociation, Gen, Kinda, Other, Philosopher's Stone(s), Post-Canon, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, he/him pronouns for envy, hes still nb tho, idk what i'm doing with this yet, will add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-31 06:44:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowboy13/pseuds/crowboy13
Summary: Envy doesn't manage to kill himself, but his philosopher's stone doesn't reform his body. Ed secretly keeps the stone with him out of some strange feeling of pity, while the homunculus is trapped with his consciousness inside of the stone.The two of them are seemingly trapped having more impact on each other than they ever intended. It's probably all just equivalent exchange.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I have no idea where this fic is going. I just came up with the vague idea and wrote this first part in one go. I'm not sure how I feel about Ed/Envy as a ship (obviously not a fan in 2003-verse but manga/Brotherhood might be ok??) so this could go that direction, but most likely it will stay gen with a focus on their relationship in general.

Envy came incredibly close to dying for real one day, and stayed bitter about the fact that he didn't  _really_  die for a long time. It wasn't something he'd ever cared to admit to himself, but he had never wanted to be alive in all his many years; digging the philosopher's stone out of his gut at the end felt like a relief, like the right thing to do. 

But of course, as the homunculus' luck would always have it, fate stepped in in the shape of Edward Elric. The young alchemist dove hand-first for the stone at the last second, metal fingers scrabbling at Envy's flesh before it all went black. 

At least for a while. 

~ ~ ~

It had been almost a month since the Promised Day, and Edward Elric was still keeping a secret. 

He supposed Mustang and Hawkeye knew, but either thought that it wasn't their place to ask or assumed that Ed had gotten rid of the stone. That final encounter with Envy had rattled all of them, so he couldn't blame the other two for not bringing it up. 

It felt strange, though, carrying around something that he considered to be crystallised evil. Yet there was something he couldn't shake, something that urged him to keep the stone on hand and hidden: Ed was sure that Envy was still alive. Why else hadn't the philosopher's stone disintegrated? 

He wasn't sure what that meant. They were enemies, after all; the homunculus was a being of pure spite and hatred and jealousy and hurt and  _oh_ , there it was, that nagging little reason that kept Ed from destroying the stone despite the lurching feeling in his gut every time he felt for it inside his pocket. Something had nestled its way into his heart and the more he thought about it (which he often tried not to) the more he believed it was pity. 

Envy would've hated that, he knew. 

~ ~ ~

The timeline of the whole thing was unclear, as was to be expected from the point of view of a literal stone. Envy couldn't see - at least not out into the world - but he could hear, a little, and  _think_. That had never been his favourite part of being alive, and it disgusted him that it was all he could do without a body. 

The thing was, at some point, Envy had become conscious again. It was a sort of gradual thing he thought, fading back into existence like the embers of a fire being brought back to life. At first he simply floated in some kind of dark void, left to have an existential crisis by himself: for a while he figured he was in Hell, the real Hell, and had a silent laugh about that. 

But then he started hearing things from the outside, and it got... strange. 

He recognised the pipsqueak's voice almost immediately, though over time he noticed that it sounded more tired than he remembered from before. His was the most constant voice, the most prominent, the one that hardly seemed to go away. It was never fully clear, but Envy could pick up words sometimes, and the clarity did continue to improve. 

"I don't know where I should go next," was the first thing he properly heard Edward say, and it struck an ugly chord somewhere in whatever Envy had instead of a heart.  _What about me?!_ he wanted to scream, wanted to wrap claws around the blond's throat and cry at him.  _Why do you get a choice? I never wanted to be here and now I can't go anywhere!_

And so, it seemed, that he still couldn't escape from his jealous ways, and time and everything else just kept going round in circles.


	2. Chapter 2

Things had been going... strangely, recently. Ed didn't want to say  _badly_ \- he was trying to pick up on that optimism thing his brother always had going for him - but it certainly didn't feel all too good. 

He and Alphonse had gone back up to Resembool to stay with Winry and Pinako just a few weeks after the Promised Day, both of them eager to reunite with their only remaining family (because that's what they were, it was evident now), not wanting to wait around in Central after things had started to settle down there. The journey home had been peaceful, more peaceful than Ed had been able to imagine anything being for a long time up until then, and he was glad to be back. 

Why, then, did he feel so restless? 

Winry, ever the rational, tried to tell him that it was because he'd gotten so used to being on the go all the time, constantly on the lookout for danger or information. Ed supposed that must be a factor, because he was  _happy_ , he was  _relieved_ , and yet--

And yet things still felt strange. Over the days and weeks and months he got accustomed to Al being back in his body, got reacquainted with his right arm, got used to manual labour and the life of a non-alchemist. His feelings for Winry went from friendly to romantic to besotted to confused to brotherly in an alarmingly short period of time, but that didn't feel so weird to him. He was just glad to be able to spend time with her and the rest of their little family, and he trusted that she felt the same. 

All of this felt ephemeral to Edward, though. Sometimes he would look down on what was happening around him like it wasn't something happening  _to_ him at all; his body would move on autopilot, his mind skating over the minutes like they were ice. 

He still hadn't told anyone about the philosopher's stone he kept on him at almost all times - about Envy. As far as Al knew, the homunculus had died during the fight with Roy, and all Winry and Pinako needed to know was that their enemies had been defeated. The stone was usually in one of his pockets or in the drawer of his bedside table in the spare room (their room, the Elrics' room, he had to remind himself of that), and always felt heavy to him, even when it wasn't on his person. It sort of felt like it grounded him, too. 

Countless mornings, when he would wake earlier than everyone else, ears automatically tuning themselves to sounds of possible threats, he found himself staring at the stone, weighing it in his hands. It was odd to think that such a giant, hulking  _monster_ was kept inside of it - at least, that was how he thought of it. 

Ed thought of that monster, its huge form and the small humanoid creature it hid within, and the seemingly infinite souls trapped inside it, calling out in pain and sorrow. He couldn't help but wonder whether Envy had been able to hear those souls all the time, and whether he had ever listened. 

~ ~ ~

It was the morning, and Edward was muttering to himself. 

Envy had learned by now that the little shrimp tended to wake up by himself and then talk to himself like he was going a little crazy. The homunculus bitterly thought that the boy didn't have a right to insanity, that he'd gotten his happy ending. 

"...but it's not like I even know..." Ed mumbled, and for a split second Envy thought he could  _feel_ the alchemist's eyes on him - on the stone - before the sensation fled. He would've grimaced if he could, would've recoiled away and snarled and bared the teeth that he had personally designed to look a little too sharp to be human.  _Don't look at me, brat_ , he wanted to say, but tried to listen harder for what Edward was saying all the same. 

"...wouldn't even be able to tell ... can't use alchemy..." 

Now  _that_ piqued Envy's interest. What did he mean, he couldn't use alchemy? And what for? Was this still some sickening 'just and morals' bullshit about not wanting to go anywhere near the power of a philosopher's stone?  _Little bit too late for that, huh_ , Envy thought humourlessly. Or maybe it was something else... 

Fullmetal had stopped talking, and the homunculus' consciousness was getting slippery and hazy again. It bothered him more and more as time went on, the spectral nature of his being, and he wished strongly then that he had a skin to crawl out of. 

Then Edward spoke, quiet and contemplative: "I hated you." 

Envy had no idea what that meant, but it made him angry. He seethed silently in the empty space he took up, and then remembered. He remembered that there was no one around to  _see_ his sulking, to  _witness_ his rage, to  _react_ , and the anger bubbled up more thickly and hotly inside him until he was nearly convinced he could feel again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, this is going somewhere, i suppose. this is almost like stream-of-consciousness writing so idk if it's even decent but if it is pls tell me so haha


	3. Chapter 3

"Ed, we need to talk." 

Ed's eyes shot up from his notes to meet Winry's, tide-blue and concerned. His hands had frozen, and he lowered them gently to the desk he was sat at, nodding for Winry to come in. 

"It's not that bad," she said, taking a couple of steps into the room, one hand on her hip. "I've definitely been  _more_ freaked out about you before, you know." 

Ed smiled nervously. "Well, that's reassuring." 

Winry sighed, glancing over the sketches and scrawls Ed was working on, before looking out of the window. "We're... worried about you, Ed." 

"Al's worried too?" he replied, sounding more nonchalant than he felt. The thought of causing his brother any sort of emotional trouble after everything still made his throat close up a little. "Heh, you can tell him that I'm still just as--" 

" _Stop_." The smirk fell from Ed's face as he saw a cloud of sadness pass over Winry. "Please, it's alright. It's just, well, you've seemed kind of... distant. We were talking the other day and we've both noticed it, you sort of--sort of leave, sometimes." 

Ed bristled. "You think you guys gotta talk about me when I'm not there?" he asked, suddenly feeling tense. 

"That's not it," Winry sighed, "it's just..." 

"Just what?" Ed snapped. He was being irrational, he knew, but he couldn't stop himself. He felt himself heating up, his pulse getting quicker with irritation. He didn't want to have this conversation. 

"I just thought you would've realised by now that you don't have to try and get through everything by yourself." The blonde's eyebrows were creased together in sympathy, and Ed felt guilt stab somewhere deep inside his chest. "Y'know, after everything." 

He had been thinking about that, actually; it was hard to escape the thoughts of his friends, his team, the people he'd worked together with to save Amestris. He thought endlessly about Ling and how much he missed their banter, about Riza and Roy and how much of a comfort it was to have them on his side, about every single person who left a more normal life behind to help out. 

He looked away, eyes burning. 

"Yeah. I guess so." 

Winry must've said something else, but Ed didn't hear, or he just wasn't really listening. He vaguely registered the sound of the door clicking shut behind her and slumped down in the desk chair. 

He knew he'd been acting odd - distant - but he'd thought he was doing a better job of masking it than that. He didn't want to make anyone else in his life feel guilty or responsible for  _anything_ , let alone this stupid sense of purposelessness of whatever this was. It hurt, in a way he hadn't imagined he would ever hurt, to think that the two people he was closest to in the world had sensed some change in him. To think that they had also noticed this feeling of emptiness. 

Recently, he'd been thinking a lot about Greed. Missing Ling and missing the homunculus were kind of a package deal, but still different: Ed had liked the prince much more quickly than he'd let on, but he also found himself surprisingly willing to call Greed a friend. He looked back on their petty bickering with nostalgia, and on the others' faces when they were clearly arguing in their shared headspace with fondness. 

However, the thing that was really sticking out in Edward's memory at the moment was what Greed had said about the sin he represented. That greed wasn't necessarily a bad (or good) thing - that it was the simple act of wanting something you didn't have. At the time, Ed had thought it was a weird thing to say, but it made sense. 

Maybe he was the greediest person he knew, dedicated his whole life to getting something back that he had lost through his own fault, and then getting sidetracked trying to save an entire country. That was greed, plain as day. 

He wondered, then, if he had kept Envy's philosopher's stone out of greed. He wasn't sure what  _type_ of greed that would be - did he think of the stone as a possession? No, that wasn't it. He swore to himself and Al that he'd never use a philosopher's stone's power, and he was going to stick to that, and he didn't just  _want_ the stone for the sake of having it. 

Perhaps he wanted to prevent anyone else from using it. He supposed that was greedy, too, wanting to save people all over again. Perhaps Ed was never going to escape that selfless sense of responsibility over other people's lives, now that he had so much firsthand experience with it. 

Or maybe, just maybe, there was just one person he wanted to save right now. He didn't want to think about that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeehaw i'm an inconsistent writer and everything's just angst without plot so far sorry!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make your local homunculus happy.


End file.
